Let’s not hold this up with pleasantries and sentiment — the proverbial ”Hi, kids! It’s been awhile, and boy, have I missed you!” — although to be clear, it has been awhile, and I have missed you.

We have stuff to discuss.

Yes, even though the premiere of Lost is still more than five months away, I have news for you, including a bit of business that represents one of the first official ”spoilers” of season 5 — the title that producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof have given the first episode.

”THE BRIDGE”

Kinda evokes that moment at the end of season 3, when Flash Forward Jack was about to kill himself by leaping from that Los Angeles overpass. It’s an important moment to evoke, as it sets up his redemptive quest to return to the Island and rescue those he left behind. Of course, Jack first has to find the Island, which vanished right before our eyes in the season 4 finale. One might wonder if ”The Bridge” represents the segue from Jack’s current position in space/time to the Island’s present temporal locale. ”The Bridge” also has subtext: after all, season 5 will be the bridge season of Lost — the year we must cross in order to get to season 6, the terminus for the series. All to say, ”The Bridge” would make a fitting title for the first episode of season 5…

Except ”The Bridge” isn’t the title for the first episode of season 5.

I just made that up.

Rest assured, I do have the real title for you, and I do intend to disclose it in this special summertime edition of Doc Jensen…

Right after this:

DOC JENSEN’S COMIC-CON WRAP-UP

Actually, Doc Jensen didn’t go to Comic-Con: that kooky theorist had to hide in the backseat of my mind as his alter ego, ”Jeff Jensen, Journalist,” covered the annual popculturepalooza. I had to moderate three panels in my Clark Kent capacity, beginning with a Friday a.m. presentation devoted to director Zack Snyder’s adaptation of the comic book classic Watchmen. My stomach was kinked with anxiety — speaking in front of 6,500 people = not my thing — but I’m grateful to a good friend and fellow Watchmen fanatic who hung with me behind the scenes and helped calm my nerves via geeky conversation and a reminder that the opportunity should be (humbly) enjoyed and appreciated, not dreaded.

After surviving the Watchmen circus, I facilitated my second panel of day, an EW-sponsored event in which we invited a bunch of TV producers whose work we admire and respect to talk about their work and various Big Picture industry issues: Josh Friedman of Fox’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bryan Fuller of ABC’s Pushing Daisies, Josh Schwartz of NBC’s Chuck and The CW’s Gossip Girl, and Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof of Lost. Some on the panel were big comic book fans, so I asked if comic-book storytelling had influenced their TV storytelling, and Lindelof, a Watchmen devotee, shared how the Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons saga’s intricate flashbacks and easter egg construction inspired the way he writes episodes of Lost. There was some time for audience Q&A, and yep, there were a lot of Lost questions, which the non-Lost guys on the panel endured with grace and humor. In fact, Fuller — a professed Lost obsessive — confessed he had a number of questions himself, none bigger than this: Did Jin survive the season finale? (Apparently, he has a sushi dinner riding on the outcome.) Cuse explained that yes, we will be seeing actor Daniel Dae Kim next season — but considering how a growing population of maybe-ghosts walk the Island, that doesn’t mean Jin is assured a corporal state.